


Cold Feet

by Ligeila



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Andy | Andromache of Scythia Never Loses Immortality, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Did Not Betray The Team, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Sad Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Team as Family, but he got close
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26530246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ligeila/pseuds/Ligeila
Summary: get cold feetto feel too frightened to do something that you had planned to do(Definition of get cold feet from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)OrBooker has second thoughts. Family rallies around him. Nile still becomes immortal.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 180
Kudos: 603





	1. Chapter 1

***

It’s the middle of the day and he has been steadily drinking since morning. It is summer and the heat in Morocco is sucking the air out of his lungs. Like drowning on air. It makes him swallow the rest of his whiskey and signal for more. Not a good day. He is most definitely not having a good day.    
  


The new glass full of whiskey and ice arrives quietly in front of him. Booker assumes that he might look slightly intimidating alone in the back corner of the bar. He doesn’t know why they are open so early. Maybe the place isn’t open at all and he’s terrorising the staff with his presence. He doesn’t care enough to leave. 

The drink swims in and out of focus on the table. His hand shakes when he lifts it to the glass. Suddenly he is unsure. Unsure about the drink and the reasons he is here in Morocco in the first place and why he has invited the whole family together for a “job”.

His hand lands on his mobile instead. Before he can really think it through he dials. It rings once, then twice.  _ Stupid _ , he thinks and removes it from his ear to cancel the call, but just then Joe picks up. 

“Hey!” Joe sounds so… happy, Booker can’t help but think. When has he himself been happy? Ever? Really?

“Ah. Hey. Joe,” he coughs as he answers, not really ready to make sound with his throat, rough from drinking too much, too fast. 

“Booker, you good?” Joe doesn’t sound too concerned to Booker’s relief. He can still get out of this conversation he foolishly started, maybe. 

“Yeah, yeah. You guys arrived?” Have a reason for calling, establish an alibi, Booker thinks. 

“Just checked in at the hotel. You?” Booker can hear Joe moving around in a quiet room, probably the hotel room he and Nicky share. 

“Got here days ago. I’m in a bar,” he smacks himself with a palm to his face the moment he says it. Joe and Nicky despise his drinking alone. They frequently try to get him to stop or dial it down. 

“Hmm. Where?” Joe doesn’t sound disappointed at least, more distracted by something else. Probably Nicky walked into the room. For a moment Booker tries to imagine Nicky and Joe in the hotel room, standing around. He hasn’t seen them in a while. How long has it been this time? A year? A little less? Something like that. He knows that they look the same. They all do and always will. But maybe hair is longer, beards have grown or been shaved. He is stuck with how alone he feels like a punch to the stomach. Involuntarily he sucks in air like he’s in pain. It’s also audible. 

“Booker, where are you?!” Joe suddenly sounds… not alarmed, but demanding. Joe will not be put off now with a simple:  _ I’m fine _ . 

“Uh,” he casts his eyes around the unlit room for inspiration. What is the name of this place? “Dunno. Few blocks away? Near the covered market and the pottery shops?” 

But also, this is in no way decent directions. The city is big. The streets in this old part are all narrow and twisty, just the way he likes them. Partly Booker is relieved that he honestly doesn’t know the name of the place. It’s not a lie. He can’t lie to Joe, not even on the phone. The only lies he has hope of succeeding in are those of omission. 

“Anyways, I’ll see you two in a few hours. When Andy gets in as well,” he aims for a calm and in control voice. He is neither of those things at the moment but what is Sebastien le Livre if not a fake and a fraud? 

“Booker...” He doesn’t hear what Joe was about to say because he hangs up. Rude. But better than digging himself further into a hole. With luck the reunion with Andy will overshadow this odd phone call and no one will bring it up again. 

He suddenly notices that his drink is empty again. Oh, well. More it is. He will sober up within a few hours, just in time for Andy, but not sooner. 

***

He has been losing time. Not a lot, to his own relief, but hours, here and there. Sometimes he wakes up walking down a street and doesn’t really know where he is or where he is going. It is worrying but he doesn’t know what to do about it and so he ignores it, mostly. 

He feels that this is what happened now, he has lost hours of time to drinking, as Joe and Nicky slide into the seats next to him. 

He is so surprised that he nearly jumps. He doesn’t, only because about two bottles worth of low-quality whiskey have made him slow to react. 

“Hey?” he can’t help but sound surprised by their presence. They look good. Rested. Happy. He is about to fuck this all up. For all of them. It had all started so innocent. Just a few conversations with Copley. And now he was here, ready to expose them all. The weight of it is overwhelming. 

“You are a hard man to find, Booker,” Joe smiles easily. He seems so happy to see Booker. He leans forward, elbows on the table and a grin on his face. “We must have walked past this place… what? Four times?” Nicky nods in agreement, smiling in his odd little way with barely twisting his lips.

Booker feels suddenly like a ton of bricks is falling down on him and he is buried alive. He feels short of breath. What the fuck is he doing? Why the fuck did he invite them all to Morocco? He is such an idiot. 

He feels Joe lean into him on his left. Knee, hip, and shoulder - a warm and steady presence. Without a word Joe helps him steady his breathing. Together they draw in slowly through the nose and woosh it out from the mouth. It takes a few minutes for him to fight down the sudden panic. 

This has happened before. His sudden panic attacks are not new. Joe has breathed with him in the jungles of Vietnam and Laos, in the bombed out ruined cities of Europe, in trenches in Belgium and France, in Crimea, and everywhere in between. They don’t usually happen in quiet bars in Morocco though. But they have been happening long before there were words for it. 

When he can open his eyes again he notices that his view of the room is mostly blocked. Or, perhaps more accurately, the room’s view of him is blocked. Somehow, for not a very large man, Nicky has managed to place most of himself in between anyone’s view of Booker and thus has physically assured his privacy. In doing so, Nicky’s back is completely exposed to the room. A position that Booker knows Nicky hates. It’s far too vulnerable.

Nicky doesn’t look bothered though. He looks worried. 

Worried for him. 

This brings tears to Booker’s eyes. They don’t fall but it is a very close call. 

Joe’s arm settles carefully around his ribs and pulls him closer. Further into the privacy of the corner table he is sitting at. Nicky, somehow, manages to shift so that even more of him seems to be between Booker and the world. 

“Easy, now. Breathe with me,” Joe keeps his voice calm and low. Both his and Nicky’s focus is all on Booker.

There, together in the shadows of the unnamed bar, three immortal men. Booker thinks it ridiculous. Such a thing should not be. Should not be possible. There should be no immortality. Least of all for him. His mind spirals again with anger, loneliness, grief, guilt, and smothering sadness. He is so tired.

“What do you need?” Joe’s voice is quiet but like a hot knife it slices through the butter of his thoughts. 

He leans forward, elbows to the table, and almost rams both his fists into his eyes to stop from sobbing. Or laughing. Or both. Fuck Joe, and his big heart. Damn Nicky, and his unwavering love. 

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he rants under his breath. 

With sudden clarity he knows. He can’t do it. 

He can’t expose them to Copley. Not more than they already have been through his research. He can’t go through with the fake South Sudan job. He can’t. 

He will just have to hand himself over. Just one immortal. They can get the proof in other ways. They don’t all need to die to prove it. 

All the while, slumped over the table, his mouth has been running away from him in a string of barely understandable French, “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. Please. Please. Please. I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.”

Through it all Joe’s hand has rested on his back. Smoothing very slowly up and down his side. Hoping to ground him with touch. Joe is still flush against Booker’s side. Nicky is still bodily blocking what is a view of a very intimate moment. 

Joe uses his left hand to gently pull Booker’s hands down and stop him from gouging out his own eyes. He clasps them together with his and Booker can’t help but clench down. It must be painful. It hurts his own hands, two around Joe’s one. Joe doesn’t even blink. 

“What’s wrong?” Joe sounds so calm and in control to Booker. All the things that he, in this moment, isn’t. He is a mess. Didn’t know himself how much of one, until now. 

Before he knows it, the story comes tumbling out in a series of, “I can’t do it. I’m sorry. It’s a set up. The whole job. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

He sees from the corner of his eye how Nicky tenses. How he shifts and quickly double checks the room behind himself for threats here and now. Booker doesn’t even know where the gun in Nicky’s lap has appeared from but there is the metal glint of a pistol. 

Joe doesn’t move. Doesn’t waiver from Booker’s side. Still wrapped around him in, for a lack of a better word, a hug. Booker feels like he should, after his admission, just spontaneously combust and fall to ash. He is overwhelmingly ashamed of himself. For what he has done, for what he was about to do with Copley, and most of all for his present conduct. He has always tried to hold himself together, especially with his immortal family. They are his only constant now, he can’t afford to alienate them with his weaknesses. But, at the same time, he was willing to betray them. 

“It’s okay,” Joe says. 

It floors Booker. Everything is far from okay. But Joe, his brother-in-arms, his best friend, and true brother in all but blood, doesn’t turn away. Speechless he stares at him. All of the fight goes out of him. 

“Can you walk?” Nicky too sounds calm. Booker looks at him and can see a plan clicking into place beyond the pale eyes. Extraction. Nicky is frightfully good at those. 

With a nod he forces his legs under himself. Together with Joe they stand and he staggers. Joe lifts his arm over his shoulder. Suddenly it looks like a friend supporting a drunk foreigner. Booker’s bag is on Nicky’s shoulder as he heads towards the bar. He pays Booker’s bill with a smile and the server, who has been looking worried the whole day to Booker, lights up with a smile too. That is the effect Nicky has so easily. The effect that Booker can never quite achieve. 

They are out of the door and down the street in seconds. Joe, unhesitating between the streets that all seem the same in Booker’s current state, leads them to the back entrance of their hotel. Nicky has disappeared, along with his bag and phone. Booker isn’t sure where or when between the bar and hotel it happened. Joe pulls him in, past the kitchen, and up the service stairs to their rooms. 

They hadn't even unbacked Booker notices absently, slumped exhausted on the bed. Joe brings around two backpacks. Then he pulls a suitcase from under the bed. It looks so ordinary, a little worn and with a few bar-code stickers from old flights here and there, but Booker knows what’s in it: two swords, a sniper rifle, shotgun, a lot of ammunition, handguns, and knives. At least. Basic toolkit for Nicky and Joe. How they move it from one country to another is a minor miracle every time. Also, the thing weighs a ton. Joe has Booker take Nicky’s bag as he shoulders his own. Then he pulls the suitcase out of the room and Booker automatically follows. 

It is as if he has given up his agency at the bar. With his admission he has as if given up a right of decision now. He could say something. He thinks he should tell Joe that he can go on alone. Go to meet Copley and give himself up. But he is too tired. So, silent, he follows in Joe’s wake. 

Joe doesn’t bother with check out. He heads straight for the exit. Concierge is busy with a group of beautiful young British tourists. They remind Booker of butterflies, beautiful and with lives too short. Pained, he looks away.

Nicky pulls up in a dusty jeep just as Booker steps out of the front door behind Joe. He helps the heavy suitcase to the back as Nicky keeps the engine running. Just then, with perfect timing, Andy steps up to the driver’s side of the car. 

“What’s going on?” Booker hears her ask from Nicky. He doesn’t hear the answer but she steps around the car and slides smoothly into the passenger seat. The trunk snaps closed. Booker stands abandoned. 

Now what?

Suddenly Joe is back. Calm as ever. Again Booker feels a hand on his shoulder as it firmly leads him to turn around and approach the car. Joe opens the door and folds Booker to the seat behind Andy. 

Wherever they are going, they seem to be going together. 


	2. Chapter 2

***

In theory Booker has always known that Joe, Nicky, and Andy have properties that he doesn’t know about. Some they have probably even forgotten. He has a few such places of his own, private and just for him. But he did not know that one such place could be a fortified villa right there in Morocco. 

They pull up to a tall metal gate with a high white wall stretching both ways long after dark. Nicky gets out, puts in a code and the gate rolls open. In darkness it is hard for Booker to make out how big the place is. He has never been here before. 

The whole drive passed in a haze for Booker. Hours of it. They switched cars twice: once for an old red sedan and then for a white Toyota rav4. No one talked, the radio quietly played a local music station. Nicky drove with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. Andy hummed along to a few pop songs. Joe slept next to Booker. He himself was incapable of any of it. Aimless anxiety kept him awake but also useless for anything else. So he stared out of the window even after it got so dark that he couldn’t make out anything on the unlit country roads. Only his own reflection was looking mockingly back at him. His mind circled around the same questions. What had he done? 

When he gets out of the car and into the house he runs out of steam again. Will there be an interrogation? 

Now what? 

Now what? 

Andy hasn’t asked a single question so far. Her silence is unnerving him. 

Joe pulls him along with a quiet and friendly, “Come on, Book.” He is directed to sit down in the dining area connected to the kitchen, Joe sits next to him. Nicky is already there and washing his hands. Someone must have been here very recently. They don’t usually leave fresh food behind. Yet, somehow, there is ravioli in the freezer. Enough for all four of them and Nicky sets to cooking it. Soon enough there is a steaming plate in front of Booker and a fork in his hand. Radio has been clicked on and it fills the awkward silence. 

He eats automatically. The ravioli are good - goat cheese and spinach. Hand made by Nicky, he can tell. They still taste like ash in his mouth. He eats, because he hasn’t eaten anything the whole day and most of the previous one as well. His hunger is sudden and ferocious. But he doesn’t enjoy the food. Once they have eaten they all stay seated around the table. Booker stares down at his empty plate. 

“Talk to me,” Andy commands. 

He has already said it once. He can do it again. Get it all over with. Not prolong his own torment. It feels like he is struck mute. Rooted into the chair and made stupid. 

“Sebastien,” Nicky leans close to him. “It’s alright. Nothing bad has happened. You can talk to us. Trust us.” 

_ Sebastien _ . They almost never call him that. Like he doesn’t have a first name anymore. He knows that it is because he has practically asked for it himself. For a long time he could not stand to hear his own name from anyone, it sounded like his wife’s pleas and accusations would forever follow along with it. His sons,  _ papa-papa _ , not far behind it. He could not then take the sound of his own name. But the lack of it has alienated him, also. 

So, here and now, it strikes through him like a bullet. But Nicky has always been a mercilessly good shot. 

“The job that I said was lined up? It was to be for Copley. He hired us eight years ago for the CIA, remember? In Surabaya?” 

“We don’t do repeats,” Andy says firmly. 

“I know,” his guilt weighs his words down. 

“So we just don’t show up. No big deal,” Andy’s calmness somehow helps him to plow on.

“He figured us out. The immortality. He wanted proof of what we are. It was to be a set-up,” somehow his words come out all calm too. Like he didn’t just admit to a huge betrayal. Of everything. Of their family. Of their trust. Of their love. 

Andy closes her eyes and leans back in her chair. She pulls a harsh breath through her nose and holds it. Booker holds his breath with her. He loves her. She is his sister, mentor, companion, and leader. He respects her and everything about her. Her judgment is more important to him than anything else. 

“Why?” Andy’s voice is quiet and sad. It would bring tears back to his eyes but he is too tired for it. Too done. 

“I...” there really isn’t a  _ reason _ , no one thing. How could he possibly explain the black hole in his chest? Where all the good things disappeared into. The gaping misery that followed him, always. All their love was not enough. It wasn’t about them. It was about him. 

He can’t look any of them in the eye. He wishes for a drink. But his flask is long empty. His bag is gone. 

“He wants proof, I suppose. He talked of medicine and advancing science, maybe some samples to study our… gift. That we should help end all suffering,” it was, somehow, much easier to try and explain Copley than it was to explain himself. 

“Since when do you care about advancing science, Booker?” Andy sounds almost harsh. 

“I don’t. I...” he has never said this out loud, “I wanted options. I’m just so tired. I wanted to know if it could end, ever.”

_ I want to die _ . He can’t even say it out loud. And he knows, in theory, it can end. The specter of Lykon is always there, every time one of them dies. It is in Nicky’s and Joe’s eyes every time the other slumps boneless and cold, devoid of breath. 

“Shit,” Andy’s voice is barely audible as she sighs with eyes closed again. Joe has his hands crossed on his chest, he has been sitting like this from the beginning, leaning back and keeping Booker in full view watching his every move and every facial expression like a hawk. Nicky too is leaning away from the table, the whole time staring silently down at the dirty dishes, like looking at Booker was too much for him. 

They are all silent for a few moments. Then Nicky lurches into motion startling Booker so bad he flinches. But Nicky just stacks up the plates and takes them away. Then, back by the table, he puts a hand on Booker’s shoulder, just as kind as he always has been. 

“Come on, I’ll show you where you can sleep.” Booker follows him silently. Upstairs he is shown a bathroom and a bedroom with a big comfortable looking bed. Booker slumps onto the bed and rests his hands on his knees. He was tired already in the morning. It’s past midnight now. He is beyond exhausted. But still too keyed up to sleep. 

Nicky has left him alone for a moment. He is back with what seems like a towel and a clean T-shirt. He sets them on the bed and then sits down next to Booker, so close that they are touching. 

“Now what?” Booker whispers. 

“Now, you try to sleep. As will we. It has been a long day.” Nicky is still not looking at Booker, he is worrying something between his hands. 

“Not what I meant.”

“I know. We’ll talk. A little among ourselves. Again in the morning. We won’t do anything behind your back. Try not to think too much,” Nicky’s voice is almost as quiet as Booker’s. “How have you been sleeping?”

Nicky’s question is unexpected at the moment. 

“You know. Never well. Hardly ever sober,” he's not even aiming for being funny. He is not going to ask for alcohol to help drown out Quynh and his own guilt tonight. He deserves to suffer. And anyways, Nicky and Joe barely keep any liquor around, drinking is not their crutch. 

“Have you tried any sleeping pills?” 

“Some.”

“Any of them help?”

“Some. Drinking is easier though.”

Nicky nods and then hands him a sheet with tablets. The label is in German, but it's a strong prescription sleeping drug. 

“You trying to drug me?” Booker can’t help but ask. It would be fair if he was. Taking these would put him to sleep for sure, probably keep him from waking up for full 8-9 hours. Won’t do anything against the dreams though. 

“You know I can’t sleep sometimes. These help,” Nicky admits. 

Booker looks at Nicky who meets his eyes sadly but with knowing. Booker does know that Nicky doesn’t sleep well. As long as he has known Nicky, to say that the man is a light sleeper is an understatement. Always up first, always reacting the fastest to any noise or interruption. Always with a weapon ready. He has witnessed Nicky’s hypervigilance. His many days and nights of no sleep and no rest. And Nicky is always armed, unless they are alone with family. He can practically feel the cold press of a pistol on Nicky's back now.

Booker pops two pills out of their casing and swallows them dry, “Thanks,” he murmurs.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have sometimes used lines from the movie or elements from the comics. I'm not setting out to repeat conversations had there. These are new conversations that sometimes parallel the source material. So if some dialogue is not word for word now or in future chapters then it is mostly intentional.   
> But, if there are glaring mistakes, do let me know. 
> 
> A heart felt thank you for all the feedback!


	3. Chapter 3

***

He is used to sleeping on his back. He probably snores. No one has ever said anything about it though. Most likely reason - Andy snores like a chainsaw. This very fact is what wakes him up. Andy, snoring right into his left ear, loud as ever. It cuts through his sleep suddenly and wakes him up confused as to where he is and why Andy is in bed with him. 

The sudden memory of the day before slices through him. Automatically he tries to get up but Andy, who is not only snoring into his ear, but also has a hand wrapped around him tightens her hold. He slumps back in defeat. He doesn’t want to wake her up. The house is quiet and the sun filters through the window. It might already be past midday. By now Copley knows something is up and the meet is very much off. Booker sighs out and stares angrily at the ceiling. 

“It’s like sleeping with a rock when you tense up this much,” Andy sleepily murmurs into his ear. 

“Sorry,” is all he can think to say. 

“Probably should get up anyways. I’m sure Nicky has stress baked half the morning already,” Andy doesn’t make a move though, still holding on to Booker. When Booker thinks about it he can smell something sweet in the air. He can’t tell what it is but it reminds him that he is hungry. 

“You should let go of me,” he says quietly. Too slow to immediately catch his own double meaning before it slips out. 

“I’m not letting go of you, Book. Ever. You and I, we are in this shitty game together,” her quiet conviction forces him to close his eyes and breath evenly, otherwise he was going to embarrass himself again by tearing up. 

He had thought her presence in his bed odd. The house seemed big enough to have more than two bedrooms. She could have easily slept anywhere else. Yet here she is, hugging him in bed, like he isn’t a traitor. Like he is still important to her. 

“When did it get so bad? When did you stop trusting us, Book?” And if anyone thought that Andy could not be subtle in her approach then they really didn’t know her. She might have enjoyed an explosion in your face as much as anyone, but her attack has always been pragmatically chosen for the occasion. 

And despite what he promised himself, he does cry. Still stuck on his back the tears slide down and ticklishly into his ears and hairline. 

“I don’t know. I just...” he catches his breath, tries to gather his thoughts, but for the life of him he can’t pinpoint anything for Andy because it was never any one thing. It was over two hundred years of misery piled up. So he focuses on the freshest layer. 

“You know how we went between Afghanistan and Sudan and Syria and Yemen with barely a breath in between. And we were all so done by the end of it. Done with the world not caring. The passivity. The innocent people dying and suffering. I remember when Joe beat his fist into a bloody mess in that school after an air raid in Sanaʽa. Nicky didn’t even try to stop him. He just stood there, looking at the dead half starved children at his feet and cried. Nearly ten years, on and off in the region, and we made no fucking difference. And I thought... I just… what the fuck was the point? The world isn’t getting any better, it’s only getting worse.”

“I pulled us out after that. Told everyone to recuperate. Take some time,” Andy says after Booker runs out of words. And they had all scattered in different directions. Maybe Nicky and Joe had been here since they parted ways from him? Where had Andy gone for more than a year?

“I went to England. I thought, I don’t know what. That the rain would help my misery?” He huffs a humorless laugh.

“You hate England,” Andy says. 

“We  _ all  _ hate that fucking island. Nothing good has ever come to us there. So I don’t know why I even went,” they both must think of Quynh at this moment. And it is not only him being French and thus having an ingrained opinion. Some places are just unlucky for them. 

“I don’t know if I was sloppy with my identity or… It is the country with most CCTV, so... Anyway, Copley found me there. Said he wanted to talk to me,” his tears have dried. It’s easier here, just him and Andy. 

“I was teaching. History, of all things. Felt like I had to keep busy, you know? I had just set up the whole thing. I liked the kids at that school. They were so alive and happy and healthy. And I felt so tired, I just couldn’t run. So I thought, I’ll just hear him out. Tell him I retired or something,” he runs out of words again. Andy and him just breathe in sync for a time. 

“Copley brought all these files. All this research about us, stretching back about a hundred and fifty years. And I did what we always do when someone is close to guessing. I laughed. I said he was crazy. Dismissed the whole thing as a conspiracy theory,” Booker lets the whole conversation with Copley play again in his head. “He didn’t buy it. He said that if we were immortal we should help people. That we should let scientists study us so that the whole world would benefit.” 

“What did you tell him?” 

“Told him to fuck off.”

“He didn’t fuck off.”

“Oh no. He kept at me. Talked about his wife dying, ALS.”

Andy sucks in air, “Ouch.”

“It’s likely he knew that would be my weak point. He played me. Or I let myself be played. I knew what was happening,” he shakes his head in disgust. 

“We are human, Book. We all have weaknesses,” Andy tries to assure him. 

“Shouldn’t we be better? Shouldn’t we be more?” He demands of her.

“No. I’m a disaster, and always have been. Nicky and Joe are insufferable. You are an asshole. We are what we are.” 

Booker can’t help put huff a little with laughter “At least they have each other.”

“We, Book,  _ we  _ have each other.  _ You  _ have us as well,” Andy hugs him closer. “Why didn’t you contact any of us about Copley?”

“I just...” he knows what he is about to say is both untrue and inadequate, “I didn’t want to be a bother?”

Andy bursts out laughing, “And this? Here?” She shakes him a little. 

“Yeah well, didn’t work out now, did it?” He laughs along with her. 

“You are not a bother, Book. Never have been, you idiot,” she finally pushes up into a sitting position and releases Booker so that he could move as well. Then she swings her legs over him and he is trapped again. 

Andy gives a heartfelt sigh, “This is my fault.”

“What? No!” Booker scrambles to push himself up as well. This slander he will not take lying down. 

“Yes, it is. Shut up,” she levels him with a look when he opens his mouth to argue. “I have been shit, especially the last century, at living, at leading. I wasn’t around much when you became an immortal. I went and had this whole thing alone, leaving you to go back to your family. And when they hurt you I wasn’t there. And then the 20th century rolled around and we jumped into it with guns a-blaze. And have we really stopped? Properly? To take stock, to reorient? Figure out where we fit into this world?”

“I had Nicky and Joe,” Booker tries to reassure her. He can’t help but think though that first Nicky and Joe had each other. 

“Yeah. And even when they don’t flaunt it, they are so happy together. It’s sickening to watch sometimes, isn’t it?” She looks at him shrewdly. He shrugs helplessly. 

“It’s not their fault,” he tries to defend them, because no matter what, Nicky and Joe are his best friends, his brothers. And they had become that after his family died one by one, each out doing the other in cruelty the closer they got to their deaths. Nicky and Joe had rallied around him. Had dragged his drunk ass away from Saint Denis near Paris and fresh graves. They had kept him busy and with them for nearly thirty years straight. They were the ones to teach him how to fight properly, how to speak half a dozen languages, how to learn new things and let go of old, how to move with time, how to be immortal. 

“No, but it still hurts,” Andy sighs. It had hurt back then and it still does, sometimes. Nicky’s and Joe’s happiness, by no fault of their own, on a bad day, could feel like a hot poker in the chest. 

“You and I, Booker, we need to learn how to live again. Love again. Have hope, again. Move on and let the old burdens go. We are worse than useless otherwise,” Andy says this like it would be easy. Let go? Pain and grief were his only constant emotions. 

“And how do we do this?”

“Well, first, we shoot Copley.”

Booker curls up with hysterical laughter. It is such an Andy thing to say.

***


	4. Chapter 4

*** 

There is indeed breakfast waiting when Booker has taken his shower and makes his way down stairs. He does so with a heavy heart. All his failures have been exposed. He wishes for a moment that they could now pretend that nothing happened at all. Like this is one of their rare family vacations. That they are just going to make cocktails for lunch, swim naked at midnight, and take rounds in cooking and sparring and just breathing together. He sits down at the table with a silent sigh. Things will probably never be quite the same. Specter of his near slip will now follow behind him. 

Before he can get his bearings and see what he can find for food there is a big mug of strong coffee in front of him. Joe casually sits next to him with his own smaller cup. Andy claims the seat on his other side. Like the night before he feels both surrounded and supported at the same time. 

“Omelets!” announces Nicky from the kitchen. 

It’s not just omelets. It never is with Nicky. There is freshly baked bread, there is fresh olives, local cheese, tomatoes, figs, and dates. To get them, someone had to have gone out at the crack of dawn. And, pièce de résistance, Pastéis de Nata - the rich Portuguese egg tarts are everyone’s favorite and Nicky’s pet peeve to get right. Someone clearly hasn’t slept at all. 

Booker’s omelet has bacon on the side. The sight and smell of it would floor him if he wasn’t sitting already. Joe doesn’t eat pork, by extension neither does Nicky. They don’t mind at all when others do but if it’s their kitchen and their rules then pork never makes an appearance. Andy doesn’t care either way, she is happy to eat anything, memorably once also snakes and squirrels. So bacon is really a concession to Booker and his very French sensibilities when it comes to cooking. 

He stares at his food too long. Joe nudges him with a foot and gives him a pointed look. It gets him eating. The omelet is perfection. The bacon has just the right balance of crispy, smoky, and salty. Next to Booker Andy makes obscene sounds over her own portion. She too has been awarded her share of bacon and is obviously delighted by it. 

Booker swallows a bite with effort. He can’t make his appreciation audible like that. He can’t even express his gratitude with words. It would be easier to shoot himself in the head than to say how humbled he is by just this little thing. And if he shot himself then he would hope that he stays dead. Despite nausea rearing up along with his guilt, he forces himself to eat steadily and drink the coffee. He can’t quite force down the fine tremble in his hands but no one calls him out on it. 

The conversation flows between Nicky, Joe, and Andy. It slides over and around him, it’s a mix of old Genoese Italian, with Arabic, French, and English words thrown in liberally. It’s their own little secret language. Like a mental hug it wraps around him. Anyone listening in on them would not understand what they are even talking about. Booker has thought more than once that collectively they must be a linguist’s nightmare. Or a wet dream. 

When all of them are finished, stuffed full of food, and the table is once more cleared, they all remain seated. It is obvious to Booker that some conversation has happened without him. He braces himself for the verdict as Nicky leans forward across the table from him with steepled fingers. For a moment he feels fear. Of all of them Nicky can sometimes be the scariest with his intensity. Andy has reason and purpose to drive her, Joe unapologetically leads with his heart, but Nicky has conviction, and an inner compass of right and wrong. And when thoroughly pissed off then, for a lack of a better expression, he can get Biblical. 

And this fear shames Booker as well, because to him Nicky has always been kind and understanding. Has picked him up from bars, alleys, and gutters piss drunk, covered in vomit. Has cleaned him up and put him to bed innumerable times. Has never been angry, has never begrudged Booker his grief and inability to deal with it. He has cooked breakfast a thousand times to alleviate his hangover when he has managed to surpass the inhuman alcohol tolerance of an immortal. He has cried on Nicky’s shoulder, has beat fists against him in impotent anger, has insulted and cursed countless times, and always he has been forgiven. 

But maybe he has run out of forgiveness. Perhaps Booker has finally run out of second chances. 

“Let’s talk,” Nicky holds his gaze and Booker is sure his fear is right there on the surface, easy to read. He manages to nod back in agreement. 

“Tell us what was the plan. With Copley. How was the set-up supposed to happen?” He might as well be discussing weather for all the emotion Nicky shows. And his calm helps Booker pull himself together, detach himself. 

“We were to meet him yesterday,” he glances at a clock on the wall, “More than twelve hours ago. He now knows something is wrong.” He pulls in a deep breath. “He was supposed to present us with a job we would not refuse. It was to be in a remote location in South Sudan. We would be lured into a trap. The exact nature of it I don’t know but I assume they would have killed us and then seen us revive. Probably filmed it for proof.”

“What was the job?” 

He hesitates to answer this, it was after all tailored for them by him, “Children. A group of kidnapped girls.”

Andy pulls a deep breath of her own. Nicky’s lips thin in displeasure. Joe closes his eyes and shakes his head, “That would do it.”

“And then?” Nicky asks. 

“I told him that no one but us would get out of there alive. Whoever he used better be expendable but not incompetent,” he focuses his eyes to a little left of Nicky. “That would be the visual confirmation Copley needed. After that he was to contact me. I assume that then they would need one of us physically.”

“ _One_ of us. As in you?” Nicky keeps going. 

“Yes.” 

“For what?” Booker is not quite sure what Nicky is driving at. Is it not obvious?

“Medical testing, blood, tissue, other samples I suppose. I don’t know what one would need,” He tries to shrug. 

“For how long?” 

“However long it took.” This last part Copley had been the least clear about. The what, and where, and how of it. And he had not wanted to know, not really. 

There is a moment of silence and everyone seems to take this in. Nicky leans back and runs both hands over his face before looking up as if asking for patience and strength from above. Then he leans forward almost aggressively and gets into Booker’s face. 

“Have you lost your mind completely?” he demands, “In what world do you think they would be satisfied with just one of us when there are four, and they saw four people die and live again?! In what world do you, for _one moment_ think, that we would leave you there?! That we would allow you to be tortured for this mad cause for one moment, let alone indefinitely?!” 

Booker is shocked. He never really thought about any of it. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about it too much, about what came after. Nicky throws his hands up in disgust and swears explicitly. 

“Did they want all of us, Book?” Andy asks quietly. 

“I… no. I said only I would give consent for samples,” he manages to stammer out. Because after South Sudan he had expected Andy to order them to scatter to four winds and lay low for a while. He would then have rendezvoused with Copley and he would have been long gone before others ever suspected anything. 

“ _Consent_. I doubt these people care much about that if they are willing to riddle us with bullets for proof,” Nicky’s tone is sarcastic. 

“Nicky,” Joe says quietly. Their eyes meet and a moment of silent communication flows between the two. More than once Booker has thought that perhaps Nicky and Joe are telepathic. It would be less strange to him than being immortal after all. 

“Did you think we would just leave you there?” Nicky asks quietly. He seems to have calmed down just as fast as he erupted earlier. Joe’s miracle touch achieved with just one look. 

Booker drops his eyes in shame to the table. Because he had thought just that. 

“You don’t need me. Not really,” he forces himself to say. “I’m just a fraud, a failure. I was never cut out for this. I’m not a soldier, I’m just a forger. And I don’t think I can keep up this charade any longer.”

For a full minute no one says anything. 

“Sebastien, tell me, how long have you thought like this?” Joe sounds sad. 

He feels like there is a wrong and a right answer here but the best he can do, the least he owes them, is an honest answer. 

“I think, maybe always. On and off.” 

He fears to look up at them. But when he does Joe has his eyes closed and is leaning back on his chair looking pained. Andy has leaned forward with elbows on the table and a hand covering her mouth, she seems to be looking over Joe’s shoulder at nothing, thinking. Nicky is the only one looking straight at him. For the first time Booker feels that someone sees all of him. Sees how broken and misshapen he is on the inside. He feels flayed under Nicky’s eyes, so he looks down again. 

It feels like he needs to explain more, fill the unbearable silence that has descended. “I never… I have never felt like I measure up to this… to you, in any way. You have always spoken of duty and purpose, destiny even. I have never felt that assurance. It has always felt like a mistake that _I_ became an immortal.” No one says anything and he is still unable to look up. He whispers to himself, “I should have died when they hanged me.”

Suddenly sitting still under their eyes becomes too much. He struggles to stand and walks out of the room. He finds himself in a beautiful sitting room with large windows leading to an inner courtyard and pool surrounded by many luscious green plants. He steps outside and slips his bare feet into the pool. The water is just cool enough to be refreshing. 

He hears someone open the sliding door and step out as well. As the door is open he hears raised voices, it makes him look up. Joe slides the window closed and cuts the sounds off. He doesn’t seem worried as he walks up to Booker and sits down next to him. Their shoulders brush against each other. 

“What’s going on?” he can’t help but ask. It is about him, that much is obvious. 

“Andy and Nicky are trying to settle whose fault this is by blaming it on themselves, aggressively,” Joe answers matter of fact. 

“It’s my fault.” He tries to get up and go back in there. He can’t have Nicky and Andy fight over this. Joe pulls him back down next to him. 

“They are going to break my nice dining area within five minutes, leave them to it.” 

Booker tries to get up again. Joe pulls him down again. 

“Relax man, it’s nothing worth saving, so sit down.” 

Both of them with feet in the pool listen to the faint sounds of a fight going on. When there is a louder crash Booker looks up again. He can’t see anything through the window. 

“The table, I assume. At least it wasn’t an antique,” Joe says casually, almost cheerily. 

“It’s a nice house,” Booker can’t think of anything else to say. It feels completely inane. 

“Thanks. We just bought it six months ago. Haven’t really settled in yet and made it our own.” Another crash draws both their attention. “I suppose this is an opportunity to remodel a little.”

“I thought it seemed a little too modern for you two.” Nicky and Joe love their history. They have little cottages, understated villas, and grand old houses that they own all over the world. They like privacy behind high walls and thick hedges. But so far they haven't seemed to take to modern architecture. And the daylight has revealed to Booker all the harsh modern design of the place. 

“Top notch security though,” Joe says, “It was built for a retired security specialist but they died suddenly.” Joe shrugs unrepentantly and adds, “We couldn’t just leave it empty.”

“You’ll make it a home. You always do,” the comment somehow feels awkward the moment he says it. 

Joe doesn’t say anything for a good few minutes. The silence stretches between them. 

“Book...” Joe starts then stops and draws a deep breath. “Sebastien, you can’t go on like this.”

Sebastien closes his eyes and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He supports his head on his hands. 

“I know.” 

“Something needs to change.”

“I know.”

There are no more crashes from the inside. A bird has started up singing somewhere nearby. 

“I’m sorry,” he forces out. 

Joe sighs deeply, “We have all known you are depressed. We should have seen how bad it has become. I’m sorry too.”

“I… I just… I don’t know what to do,” he confesses. 

“Well, suicide is not an option,” Joe says bluntly, “So if you can’t end it what does it leave us with?”

He has tried to kill himself. He has jumped off bridges, walked in front of trains, shot himself on a regular basis, and overdosed on drugs innumerable times. He only hopes that his family doesn’t find out how suicidal he has been when left to his own devices. This deal with Copley was just another attempt. Only now he had been ready to bring his family down with him. 

“I need help,” he whispers. 

Joe leans his weight into him in silent support. 

***


	5. Chapter 5

***

The rest of the day passes in a careful dance of avoidance. It seems that no one has the strength to bring up Booker and Copley and the what-if of South Sudan anymore. They are forced to eat the dinner in the sitting room, off the too low coffee table and too soft, too white couches. The dining area is thoroughly trashed. What is left of the wood furniture is fit for kindling and nothing else. 

Booker feels guilty about it but Joe laughs at the mess and orders Nicky and Andy to just clean it up. Joe’s ability to just let things go astounds Booker. But the biggest surprise is that no one is actively angry at him. He knows he has to make this whole mess up to his family but the _how_ of it escapes him. 

The uncertainty of it all drives him from his bed in the middle of the night. He had managed to convince Andy that he is not going to run and that he can’t take another night of her snoring if there is an option to avoid it. She pretends to pout but gives in too fast for it to be truly genuine. Booker doesn’t take it personally. They all like their space when they can get it. He declines the sleeping pills and Nicky lets him, leaving them out though, in case he changes his mind. 

He had spent the afternoon exploring the house. It did have the new and unlived in feel. And it was big. Bigger than most of their new properties with its four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a study, a library, a sitting and a dining area, a gym, all of it laid out around an inner courtyard with a pool. It was easier and cheaper to hide where there were a lot of people. Apartments in high-rises and overpopulated slums were far easier to disappear into. 

This house was an indulgence. Clearly the decorating was done by some interior designer. It was tasteful but impersonal, there was a little too much white, the art on the walls was not Joe’s, the library didn’t have the right books. But there were some personal touches here and there, the handmade soaps in the bathrooms, the colourful throw blanket over the sofa, and the kitchen. The kitchen was the most obviously homey space in the whole house. Booker didn’t dare a look into the master bedroom but assumed that too was also redone to fit the owners. It was not the first time that Booker thought that all Nicky and Joe really needed was a bed and a stove for contentment, maybe a roof, too. 

As he slinks out of his room in the middle of the night the house feels too spacious and filled with too many shadows. Every corner seems big enough to hide a whole strike team. He had thought to go outside but suddenly couldn’t face the open sky. So he heads towards the kitchen instead. From the wreckage of the dining area he can see the kitchen’s lights are on and it is already occupied. Nicky sits behind a computer at the counter. At first Booker thinks he is reading something but as he gets closer it becomes obvious that Nicky is asleep. His back is ramrod straight and his head is only slightly supported on a closed fist. 

He turns to leave but the sudden movement wakes Nicky up. In a second Booker is looking into a barrel of a pistol. He can’t help but admire the speed with which Nicky can go from asleep to cocking a Beretta. For a second he thinks that he will be shot in the head and Nicky and Joe will get to redo a kitchen wall as well but then Nicky lowers his gun to the counter.

“Mary Mother of God, Booker. Don’t sneak up on me!” he sighs out in relieved and outdated Italian. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to. I can go,” and he makes a vague hand movement towards the rest of the house. It’s not like he was looking for anything specific in the kitchen. 

“No, no. Stay.” Nicky waves him towards the only other seat in the kitchen, the second high bar-stool like chair. It’s incredibly uncomfortable and Booker can’t help but marvel how Nicky could have slept sitting up on one. 

Nicky stands up himself with an exaggerated stretch. He massages his back as he walks over to the kettle and fills it with fresh water. 

“Tea or coffee?” Nicky asks with his back turned. 

“Coffee.” It’s not like he is going to sleep anytime soon. Nicky switches on the coffee machine and abandons the water unboiled into the kettle. 

“Coffee it is then.” Nicky leans his back against the counter next to the machine as it gurgles into life. He rubs his face with both hands to dispel exhaustion, and gets two small cups down.

“You should go to bed,” Booker admonishes gently.

“You sound like Joe.” Nicky counters mildly. 

“He’s not wrong.” 

Nicky only hums in answer but proceeds to make two espressos nonetheless. Booker doesn’t comment. Nicky knows that he likes a big cup of coffee, something that lasts for more than two sips. Being forced to drink an espresso is the brotherly pettiness that he has come to expect. Normally he would complain and they would descend into a full argument. There would be furious hand gestures and a lot of swearing. Booker doesn’t feel up to it so he accepts his cup with a silent nod and watches how Nicky spoons two sugars into his. The sight nearly makes him comment, that much sugar in one espresso should not be legal. Instead he bites his tongue and says nothing. 

Nicky runs his hand over a laptop to power it back to life. Few clicks later and Nicky swirls it around so that Booker can see the screen. The joke within the family was always that only Booker knew how to switch on a computer. That, if it was less than a hundred years old, the others had no idea how to use it. It was blatantly untrue but it had always made Booker feel needed. He was just faster at picking up modern technology. He was also better at putting it to what could be by some considered as criminal use. 

“What am I looking at?” he asks as he is already clicking the play button for what seems to be a TED Talk. 

“Just watch it and tell me what you think.” Nicky runs his hands through his hair repeatedly and it sticks up in odd tufts. 

The video starts with a young skinny guy nervously pacing on a stage. He introduces himself as “just Steven” and proceeds to talk about the future of medicine. He is enthusiastic, a little too much so. Something about the young man bothers Booker to no end. It sets his teeth on edge how there is no talk of who will have access to these fabulous new drugs that will cure cancer, and dementia, and prolong life, and all the other amazing things. He is a child, who learned to read in the dusty backroom of his father’s printing shop, when his father was in jail for having printed Voltaire. He devoured Rousseau’s words while his mother marched in bread riots. He can hear the build up to a utopian future, crafted for just a selected elite. The video is 8 minutes long and during it Steven fails to explain how these new breakthroughs are going to be made. 

His face scrunches up in disgust by the end of it. Silently he slides the computer back to Nicky who opens another window for him to look at. It introduces the young man as Steven Merrick, CEO and founder of Merrick Pharmaceuticals. A chill runs down Booker’s spine. 

“He is paying Copley handsomely for something. Considering that he has inhouse security the size of a small army I doubt it is protection.” Nicky sounds very matter of fact. 

“Right,” he sighs out. 

“Suppose we are to be the building blocks for this bright future Steven likes to talk about.”

Booker is disgusted by the very thought of it. That this sleazy asshole would have anything to do with Andy, or Nicky, or Joe. 

“You didn’t say that James quit the CIA,” Nicky continues. 

“Steven? James?” Booker looks up surprised. 

“Spend all night looking into someone and you feel like you are on a first name basis.”

Booker knows that feeling. He has hunted down plenty of people like this. He once found an arms dealer through his girlfriend’s Instagram post. You did sometimes come to feel intimately close to people you despised. 

“His company Veritas Assessment is based in UAE but James lives in London. Very nice house, I must say, even for an ex-spy.”

Nicky shows him another picture, it’s an aerial photo of a private property. Booker has some idea of London’s real estate prices. James Copley must be paid very well indeed. 

“Looks a little like this house,” Booker comments. 

Nicky chuckles humourless, “Might even be the same architect, who knows.”

“Crap,” he can’t help but swear. He lowers his head onto the counter. 

“This kind of sloppiness is not like you. If I can find this out in six hours then it should have taken you six minutes to do the same.”

He has nothing to say to this. He hadn’t bothered to look into Copley properly. He bangs his head onto the counter in answer to Nicky. He had known about Veritas Assessment and Copley having left the Agency but he hadn’t gone further than that. _Idiot_. 

He hears the computer clicking closed quietly. Nicky rounds the counter and puts both hands to Booker’s shoulders. For a wild moment he thinks Nicky might strangle him, he deserves it after all. Instead he gets a slow massage. The stress of not only the past couple of days but of months that has gathered into his neck and shoulders slowly relaxes. It astounds him that he can still have this - Nicky’s quiet care. 

“We need to look into this Merrick thoroughly,” Nicky comments. “There is more to him than just big words. I don’t trust his face.”

Booker can’t help put snort. Merrick might look like an entitled little prick but that was probably the least of their problems. 

“Do you also want to shoot Copley?” He can’t help but wonder. 

“For sure. His ass was dead the moment he messed with you.” Nicky’s quiet conviction is both scary and reassuring. 

“I kind of liked him,” Booker confesses. 

“You have terrible taste in men, Sebastien,” Nicky tuts. 

This gets Booker to laugh so hard he tears come to his eyes. It is true though, he _does_ have a terrible taste in men. 

#  *******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is there a Bisexual Disaster Booker boat? If there is, I'm on board.  
> Not that any ship is getting anywhere for Booker in this story.


	6. Chapter 6

***

By morning, when Joe and Andy find him and Nicky sprawled out on the floor and ignoring the soft couches of the sitting room, Booker feels cross eyed and deeply disgusted by not only Steven Merrick but by his whole Medical Research and Development Department. He and Nicky had combined their efforts and had dug deep into Merrick Pharmaceuticals. Where on earth had they found this Dr. Meta Kozak?! Her previous research barely scraped through any ethics committee. Her brilliance was clearly overshadowed by her ruthlessness. Sadly, she reminds him of too many people they have run across before. 

Nicky had returned his computer to Booker. His phone was smashed to pieces in a dusty street. It had been a burner anyways, but he felt lucky that Nicky held on to the computer. It was custom built and as secure as possible. He could of course fashion a new one but having his own was better. It also showed that not all trust was lost between him and his family. 

Andy laughs at them. Joe looks worried for them. For a moment it feels so normal, like they are building up to some regular Old Guard job. Him and Nicky obsessively researching and preparing, Joe and Andy managing them and their efforts. 

Joe makes breakfast but bans both Nicky and Booker from drinking more coffee. He does feel a little jittery from too much caffeine. The effect will pass soon but then tiredness will be there instead as well. Thus neither of them put up much of a fight over the beverage question and quietly submit to drinking fresh orange juice instead. 

It takes Nicky a better part of an hour to present the detailed look into James Copley and Steven Merrick. Booker feels dirty by the end of it.  _ He  _ should have done that research himself months ago. None of this would have happened. After Nicky, Booker goes over their security, this too takes a long time. He had checked and double checked if their current location was in any way compromised. 

To his relief Copley has no idea what current identities Nicky and Joe are using. The house has been bought through a shell company anyways. Whoever Nicky used to organize their escape had done a good job. The first car was a burned out husk by the side of a busy motorway and the second car seemed to belong to an aged couple and they were happily driving around in it still, with no idea it had been borrowed for a few hours the other day. The third was with them and they had arrived under the cover of dark. Morocco was not covered in traffic cameras and satellite images would be inconclusive if there even were any. There seemed to be no reason to think that anyone was coming for them here. But moving again might be problematic. Copley was sure to be watching airports and ports. If they are lucky then Copley would think that they had left the country immediately or hadn’t arrived at all. 

Booker went over what he could remember from Copley’s research. Most of the identities were long burned but some loose ends needed tidying up. He worried most about the money trail. It would be a disaster if Copley could sniff out their accounts. He would need to do a complete overhaul of everything. It was going to take days if not longer. They all needed fresh identities as well, just in case. 

Before he could bury himself under all that needed to be done Andy orders him to stop. “Is it likely that he will discover us right now, when he hasn’t so far?” 

“I don’t know how hard he is looking. He seemed quite obsessed. But maybe more with the past then the present. I just don’t know! And I can’t go too close to his systems in fear of him tracing me back.” His frustration is obvious. 

“Enough for today then. You two have been at this the whole night. I want to read a book by the poolside. Come on,” Andy declares. 

Booker expects Joe to haul Nicky upstairs to their bed. He suspects that Nicky hasn’t slept properly for at least 48 hours. The daylight has given him a washed out look and deepened the dark bruises under his eyes. Joe does look concerned but he takes Nicky outside and pushes him onto a wide recliner. They are both asleep in moments. They sleep like Booker has seen them sleep countless times, wrapped together in too small of a space. Absently he adjusts a big umbrella to cover them from the sun. Having them there, close by, is somehow nice, reassuring. Their casual intimacy still humbling to be a witness to. 

Booker ends up stretching out under an umbrella himself, shielded from the harsh sun. He doesn’t have a book but doubts that he could concentrate on a single printed word. Andy soon settles next to him with two flashy looking cocktails and two books. Cocktails are Andy’s little hobby, ever since they ran a speakeasy for a month back in the 1930s in New York. These look fruity and refreshing. When Booker takes a sip then his also turns out to be non-alcoholic. He gives Andy a dirty look but she ignores it, unrepentant. Booker can’t help but wonder if through restricting his access to alcohol he was being punished just a little by his family. It would be just the kind of passive-aggressive bullshit they liked to pull. 

“I got you something,” she says and hands over a book. 

It’s  _ Don Quixote _ . He runs a reverent hand over the cover. It’s the first edition in Spanish from 1605. There are less than a hundred surviving in the world. The value of this book is immense. How Andy would get it, only Andy would know. 

“This could not have been cheap,” he comments a little awed.

“It wasn’t,” Andy says like it’s nothing. 

He lies back with the book on his chest. He doesn't have the energy to try and read it, and reading it is not even the point, just the weight and shape of it is grounding. It also hurts dully. Only Andy would bother to get him this book. She would not see it as too much trouble, just to cheer him up and give him something he loves - an old and rare book. A book older than him. What an ungrateful little shit he had been, thinking this was not enough. 

“Don’t!” Andy warns him. 

“Don’t, what?” he asks dully. 

“Don’t overthink this. I can hear you from here,” she admonishes him. “We’ll figure this out. Together, as always.”

He really doesn’t deserve them, he thinks. 

How much reading Andy does is debatable. She opens her book at random and then places it over her face as she lies down. Sebastien just stares at this in exhaustion. He tries to read the cover of the book but can’t really make out what it is. Is it in Armenian? His temples are throbbing from lack of sleep. He decides to close his eyes for just one moment.

***

His dreams are troubled, restless. He feels like a foreigner in his own body. He plays with children, they crowd around him, he gives them candy. He makes sure there is one for everyone, including the shy boy with angry eyes. He is hot, his sweat runs down his back and mingles unpleasantly with dust. The dust is everywhere. In his eyes, in his hair, it will be a bitch to get out later. Sun glares high above. He is blinded momentarily as he enters a building. The gun feels heavy in his hands, he is suddenly overly aware of its weight. He shoots a man. For a moment he feels nothing. Then he feels horror. The man isn’t dead. Blood. So much blood everywhere. Then pain, sharp and sudden, washes him away. 

He wakes up with a strangled scream. Automatically his hand goes to his neck where he was just stabbed lethally. The memory of blood filling his mouth still swims around in his head. Andy lurches into a sitting up position gracelessly and her book goes flying to the ground. Her swearing brings him around to reality. He is speechless though. Was this it? Was this a new immortal? Now, of all times? Was it always so vivid? Had it hurt this much before? Had they all hanged with him, felt his terror and shame as he died that first death? 

He looks over to where Nicky and Joe were. Nicky has covered his mouth with his hand. He too is stuck remembering the blood filling in his mouth. Joe is already up and moving. Almost frantic he goes looking for something. 

“Come on!” Andy orders. She doesn’t wait for Booker to move on his own though. She grabs his shoulder and hauls him up and indoors. Booker collapses immediately back to sitting on a white sofa. Nicky folds to the seat next to him, still with eyes looking wild and scared. Joe is scribbling furiously into his sketchbook, pacing up and down the room. Andy stands like a statue in the middle of it. Booker has never seen her so… stunned perhaps, maybe even scared, surprised for sure. 

“This can’t be happening,” she says. Andy looks at each of them imploringly, like they could confirm this as a joke. “Not now.”

“We need to find her,” Joe’s conviction draws all eyes on him. “What did you see?” He turns towards Booker and Nicky.

“The knife, it was pesh-kabz. Pashtun ...” trust Nicky to know the weapon with what he had been killed in a dream. 

He rubs his neck again and feels frustration well up in him. They were on an edge of disaster right now and this fucking universe could just not give them a break? He closes his eyes in concentration, “Part of a name, Free... something. Freeman?”

“Freeman,” Andy confirms. “She’s a US Marine. Combat duty, or near combat duty. Afghanistan.” 

Joe breathes out in frustration. Booker knows Joe’s opinions about the ongoing war in Afghanistan. He had heard all about it already in the 1980s when Soviet Union had invaded, he got a repeated and revised version in the early 2000s when Coalition Forces moved in. But then Booker had also stepped on an old Soviet landmine and lost most of his left leg. He had been doped up on morphine while it grew back and had had to listen to Joe rant on the subject. Even Nicky had walked out of hearing distance for that one. 

“We are out in the open,” Booker needs to say it. He needs to remind them that they are exposed. He exposed them yes, and they really don’t need the extra heat. 

“So is she,” Nicky reminds him, “She is confused and scared. She is more alone than she has ever been. You can’t tell me you don’t remember that.” He gives Booker a look. 

He does know. He does remember. 

He hanged in a noose for three days. Living and dying over and over again. The other soldiers executed along with him froze solid the first night, it was so cold. He didn’t freeze, his blood kept pumping as he revived again and again. The carrion birds loved his soft warm flesh. They swarmed to eat him alive. To this day he can’t recall how he got down. He had been so frightened. He thought himself in hell. His hell was a frozen wasteland. There were no people, no shelter, no food, no nothing. What the Russian army hadn’t burned the French Grande Armée had taken. He crawled to follow the retreating army, freezing and starving to death in turns. He never caught up, luckily. Nicky and Joe found him first. But he had been mad by that point. He thought himself a demon. Or thought them demons. 

Sometimes in his dreams, he is back there, knee deep in snow, alone and scared. Crazy. 

In a way, he remembers too much and very little at the same time from his beginnings as an immortal. But this new girl. She died. She lived again. There were witnesses. The 21st century world would not overlook her. Nicky and Joe had died many times on the same battlefield, many saw them revive but thought it god’s doing. No one saw Sebastien come to life. The American woman was surrounded by people who would not take a miracle such as her in stride. 

“I’m going to go get her,” Andy announced. She even made it two steps towards the door. 

“Hold on, boss!” Nicky called. 

“What?” She turned around. 

“Not alone! Not right now,” Joe argues even as he rips the page out of his sketchbook and hands it to Andy. 

“The borders are probably being watched, we need to be careful about our movements,” Booker picks up the argument. 

For a moment he thought that she was going to up and leave anyway. None of them would physically try and stop her. Maybe it is something in his face, or maybe in Nicky’s or Joe’s that stops her. She slumps onto a sofa as well and runs her hands through her hair in frustration. 

“How do you want to do this then?” 

***


	7. Chapter 7

When Andy breaks the new girl’s neck in one fast move, Booker could not help but think that it is perhaps not the best way to get to know her. First impressions, and all that. 

Admittedly, they are in a hurry. Explaining and asking her politely to come with them, two people she knows nothing about, is probably too much to ask for. At least they are out of sight of everyone and the Humvee is close enough. Still, Booker feels more than a little self conscious hoisting a limp female body to the back of a vehicle. It’s just always so wrong, and he hopes it doesn’t come up again anytime soon. 

Getting out of the Camp Leatherneck is surprisingly easy. But like most military installments the hard part is getting in, leaving is usually no problem. Booker thinks of this as he gives his best impatient-superior-officer look as the gate to the camp rolls open. Is it odd that a colonel is leaving only with his female driver/aide? Maybe. Is anyone going to point this out to his face and try to stop him. No. Is anyone going to search the Humvee? Apparently not. 

Once there is some distance from the camp Andy turns on music. She loves it loud when she drives. Booker runs a hand over his freshly shaved hair. It is odd to have such a short cut again. It has been decades. He likes it longer. He has a habit of running his hand through his hair when he is nervous or frustrated. He knows it will grow back soon, for an immortal it is no time at all. All the same, he wishes he hadn’t had to practically shave it all just for what turned out to be less than an hour of effort. Hopefully worth it though, he thinks. 

He throws a look to the back, the new girl is still out cold. Or is pretending to be so. Let her. He chooses to give her more space and climbs awkwardly to the front seat next to Andy. His 187 cm of height doesn’t fold easily across the space but all things considered a US Army issue Humvee is a luxury of room compared to some vehicles he has been in over the years. Andy gives him an amused look from behind her sunglasses. He slumps into the seat as much as is possible with the stiff uniform. 

“That was easier than I hoped,” he says to her. 

“Don’t jinx it!” Andy warns him. 

It amuses Booker no end how superstitious Andy is. Most of his own little beliefs on such matters are long gone, washed away with too many years of life and death. He doesn’t believe such little daily magics, if indeed he ever had. Facts and science, cause and effect, logic and reason are far more his speed. Nicky and Joe are no better than Andy really, they too would sprout what seemed like complete nonsense at times. It was not only black cats, evil eyes, broken mirrors, or knocking on wood. It ranged from lucky and unlucky flowers, to not whistling indoors or at night, to good luck if a bird shits on you, but bad luck when you see an owl. That was only scratching the surface really. Some of the things they did, like Nicky planting rosemary near as many safe houses as he could, might have been tradition, habit, need, or some kind of warding magic. It’s these things that Booker mostly didn’t notice anymore, until he suddenly did, then they completely baffled him.

So there is nothing more to say than, “Sorry,” and smile sardonically. Just as Andy doesn’t believe in gods of any kind, Booker doesn’t subscribe to superstitions. 

Booker’s phone vibrates against his breast. He pulls it out and answers. Andy glances over to him but turns back to the road. He will tell her what’s it about in a moment. 

“You have company,” Joe informs him. 

“Damn,” he breaths out and turns in his seat to look out the back window. He makes eye contact with the new girl. For a breath he is speechless, he wants to say  _ Hey, how are you? _ but before he can, she kicks the back hatch open and rolls out. Her timing is astounding. Next thing Booker notices is a distant dust cloud on the horizon, signaling their followers. 

Andy hits the brakes and Booker, who doesn’t have a seat belt on, nearly smacks into the front window. He snaps an elbow out and stops himself barely in time. Before he even has a chance to give Andy a dirty look, she is out and stomping up to their youngest family member. For a second he considers leaving her to it but Joe’s warning means that they literally have no time to spare. With a curse he hauls himself out as well. 

The girl is livid. Which, in all fairness, she absolutely should be but Booker can see the shapes of vehicles already behind her. Soon they will be in hearing distance and then she might make a break for it. If she runs, they lose more time. He walks up to Andy and they share a quick look. Booker would shoot her himself, if Andy would show any reluctance. After all, Nicky and Joe had had to kill him quite a few times there in the beginning, to get their point across. He remembers now that they alternated between each other, he knows that it had been sharing a burden neither man had wanted to carry. When he had finally joined Nicky and Joe after his family had passed away, they had never killed him again.

Andy has no such qualms. She pulls out a pistol and shoots. 

“You just had to say it,” Andy comments with an annoyed look towards the approaching dust cloud.

“Yeah, yeah, my bad,” Booker sighs as Andy walks back towards the driver’s seat. 

So Booker has to drag the same dead body to the Humvee again. This time though he lifts her to the back seat and sits next to her. Her uniform is ruined now. There is blood all over it. She probably will be upset about it. He thinks that he has never cared about a single uniform he has worn, even if he has been proud of what he has been fighting for. He had hated going from prison rags to military uniform for Napoleon. Ever since, the colours he wears have mattered very little. 

His phone rings again and silently Booker lifts it to his ear. 

“Take the route through the mountains,” Joe informs him with a level voice. Booker can almost see it. Nicky motionless behind a sniper rifle and Joe next to him with binoculars. Both utterly focused on their task. Two hawks, ready to descend upon unsuspecting prey. 

He ends the call and leans closer to Andy, “Hard left to the mountains.”

Andy immediately turns to follow his direction. They drive with frightful speed between boulders, past sheer cliff edges, and up a steep narrow bath. It forces their followers into a single file behind them, keeping up the same mad speed as Andy. Booker can make out the shapes of people in the black Humvees. These are not US soldiers coming to save a comrade. It’s private security men, as they are called now, mercenaries by the old standards. 

As he looks back he sees the last vehicle in the line veer suddenly and crash into a big rock formation. It comes to a stop blocking the route back. Three more vehicles follow them but Booker won’t worry too much about them. If the people in them are not dead, then the Humvees will be soon enough. As he thinks it the last car in the line slows to a halt as well and is soon out of sight. The two left get smart to their situation fast. The lead car opens fire on them. They are barely in range, most of the bullets go wild, but the Humvee is not bullet-resistant nor armor-plated, so some strike true. One bullet rips through Booker's shoulder. He feels it but doesn’t bother to look down at it. He keeps his eyes trained out of the window. 

“You’re shot,” remarks the girl next to him. She’s all healed now and looks at him angrily. 

“Not for long,” Booker replies calmly. He can already feel his flesh knitting back together. The new girl gasps in surprise as she too notices. It is one thing to have it happen to yourself but quite different seeing someone else’s wounds heal in seconds. 

“What are you?!” she demands. 

“Immortal, just like you. My name is Sebastien le Livre,” he holds out his right hand for her to shake. 

She doesn’t take it. Instead she turns to Andy and with an astounding amount of accusation, for someone who is just fine, and says, “You shot me!” 

“I did,” Andy answers dry as the dust around them. 

More bullets hit them. There is only one vehicle left now, and they seem to be desperate to stop them. One of their tiers is blown out but Andy keeps control and they don’t come to a stop. Andy could drive them on even just rims if she had to. 

“Why are they shooting at us?!” The new girl demands, as she tries to angle herself into a more protected position. Booker doesn’t bother and takes another bullet for it. 

“My guess? People would do a lot to get their hands on an immortal soldier,” Andy says. 

Booker feels a chill run down his spine. Something niggles in the back of his mind. Something important. Something he saw, or heard maybe? What was it?

The new girl looks out of the back of the Humvee. Booker’s eyes follow. They both see the driver’s head explode in a red mist against the windscreen. She pulls back in disgust. 

“What’s your name?” Booker asks mildly. 

“Freeman, Nile Freeman,” she answers with a far away voice. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” he says. 

“Welcome to the family,” Andy adds from the front. 

***

When Andy pulls up to Andrei’s Li-2 some 40 minutes later, Booker can see that Nicky and Joe are already there. They are hanging out with the local villagers, they are dressed just like the locals, blending in easily. 

The moment Andy pulls up Andrei walks towards them. Booker meets him halfway with a half hug and a slap on the back. Andrei thinks that Booker is the son of a man who his father knew during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. When Gregori spoke of little Andrei with pride then Booker told him of his own sons. Now here he was almost 40 years later pretending to be one of those sons. He likes Andrei, having him as a contact has been useful more than once. Sad then that this was probably the last time they could fly with him.

All those years ago Booker had been pretending to be an arms dealer looking to profiteer in a war torn country. Gregori had called him a capitalist shark several times, had shot at him twice, and after Booker managed to drink him under the table they had become fast friends. And Gregori had hooked Booker up with his cousin Arseni who had been an admiral and who, after the fall of Soviet Union, sold Booker tree submarines. The early 1990s had been a good time to Booker’s gun runner persona and all his Soviet contacts. All of them had started with Andrei’s father Gregori. So Andrei was a little special to Booker, no matter that he ran drugs out of Afghanistan and guns into it. 

They hug, they trade greetings, but Andrei is a businessman, he knows the value of time. They are on board and engines running within five minutes. The airplane is barely loaded up with anything, half empty it has enough space for five passengers. Booker sits behind Andrei’s pilot seat with legs stretched out. Andy and Nile keep to the back of the plane. Nicky and Joe join Booker in the front half, giving more space to the back. Proper introductions must wait, Andrei speaks enough English that they can’t discuss immortality in front of him. 

Nicky uncorks a vodka bottle and takes a long drink from it. Then he silently offers it to Booker. Booker is slightly surprised that Nicky is drinking but then he remembers that Nicky had just shot and killed several people. People who, for all they know, were completely innocent. Mercenaries rarely were, but who knew. Shoulder to shoulder with Nicky he is reminded of countless post-battle moments, when both of them are trying to wind down. Then Nicky would drink with him. Could out drink him even. 

“What do you think?” Joe asks quietly, looking back towards Andy and Nile. 

Both Nicky and Booker look over as well. Exactly then Nile stabs Andy in the shoulder with a knife she has been concealing.

“I like her already,” Booker says with a smile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long wait.   
> Real life happened. I also rewrote this chapter four times.


End file.
